Governance

Datatec’s strategy is to improve shareholder returns over the medium term, combining corporate and business development actions aimed at enhancing the competitiveness and profitability of its subsidiaries and operating divisions. A responsible business programme is fully integrated into this strategy, reflecting our commitment to social and community development, environmental performance, and the wellbeing of our people. Creating long-term value for shared prosperity remains central to Datatec’s purpose.

Our approach to risk is set out in the Datatec risk policy and summarised in the annual and integrated reports. We integrate ESG risks into the overall risk management framework as appropriate. The process is overseen by the Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee (“ARCC”) which reports to the Board.

Following preparatory work undertaken in FY25, the risk policy was updated in early FY26 to provide more detail on categorisation of risk. This provides a structured way to identify and assess risks that could impact the organisation's objectives, including its commitment to responsible business practices. As a result, general responsible business risks were integrated into the risk policy for the first time.

To complement this, it is planned for specific material responsible business risks (as identified in the recent subsidiary double materiality assessments) to be included in divisional risk registers during FY26.

It should be noted that cyber security (commonly considered an ESG issue) has been identified as one of the key risks for the Group – this is described in more detail in the risk report within the Datatec annual report.

Datatec is committed to maintaining the highest standards of ethics and business conduct. The Group has a Code of Conduct (“the Code”) detailing the standards expected of all Datatec employees, including addressing specific matters such as bribery and corruption. It is founded on the 10 principles of the United Nations Global Compact (including its focus on human rights) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) policy guidelines for preventing corruption. The Code is reviewed annually.

The Code is applied across all divisions, and all Datatec employees are required to undertake annual training on the Code.

As part of Datatec’s fair and responsible remuneration programme, short-term incentives for Group executive directors include an element related to ESG performance on specific measures. These are set out, including performance against the measures, in our integrated report.

Datatec recognises that modern slavery practices can have severe, wide-ranging and long-lasting impacts on stakeholders and is therefore committed to preventing acts of modern slavery and human trafficking from occurring within its own business and within its supply chain and expects its suppliers to adhere to the same standards.

As part of our commitment to combating modern slavery, we have policies and measures undertaken at Datatec and divisional level. Details on these can be found on each entity’s website.

The responsible business team at Datatec continually looks for ways to improve our ESG initiatives and how we report on them. To that end, we have produced this first standalone Datatec responsible business report. It is complemented by detail included in the integrated report and by divisional responsible business reports produced annually by our three main subsidiaries.

In addition, we are enhancing our FY25 TCFD-aligned reporting (included as the non-financial and sustainability information statement in our Datatec Plc annual report and accounts) through the inclusion of financial quantification of material physical climate risks for the first time. This will improve the climate scenario analysis set out in our first TCFD report for FY24.

Looking forward, we support the voluntary adoption of IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information and IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures, which were effective from 1 January 2024. We are monitoring government discussions regarding adoption of the new sustainability standards for businesses in South Africa, and plan to undertake a gap analysis to understand in detail the route to alignment for Datatec.

We evaluate Datatec and its subsidiaries’ responsible business performance in a number of ways, including internal strategically-aligned KPIs (as noted in the pillar sections above), investor ESG ratings agencies (notably MSCI and Sustainalytics), and external frameworks including EcoVadis and CDP globally, and BBBEE in South Africa.

For more detail on the responsible business performance and plans of our divisions, refer to the Datatec integrated report.